Made some potsticker dumplings and they turned out well although they were twice the size they were supposed to be:
The recipe came from my Ken Hom book:
EDIT 21 Jan 2012
I have been making these with twice the filling specified in the recipe but the same amount of dough. So whether this means I need to roll out the wrapping to half the thickness I have been I’m not sure. It would be very fiddly though. Also I substituted lamb mince instead of pork and it didn’t work as well.
Last Friday I made a big pot of dahl (red lentils) for when my uni friends visit next weekend.
My secret ingredients are chipotle chilli (smoky and hot) and pulverised Indian pickle (hot, salty and tangy).
Yesterday I made oxtail stew using the Hairy Bikers oxtail stew recipe Was quite impressed with the result. I’ve made oxtail stew a few times but this is the best recipe yet. The only alteration I made was that I doubled the amount of red wine. But they don’t take all the bones and jellyish stuff out before serving. It’s time consuming to do that but well worth it for ease of eating. Also, they refer to it as an economical cut of meat but I paid £14 for approximately 2.4kg of oxtail (in Waitrose admittedly) and I reckon you lose about 60% in the form of visible fat, bone and jellyish stuff so it’s not that cheap.
3 Oct 2012
I used this stew recipe but substituted ox cheek for oxtail. I also added 1 tbsp mushroom ketchup. It was very good, in fact probably better than oxtail. Not only is the texture better, but you only have to cut off some tendon-y bits at the start; you don’t have to separate the meat from the bones etc after cooking.
7 Dec 2012
I made the oxtail stew but took the temperature down to 125C and cooked for 3.5 hours. Also, the HB recipe is ok for 2 oxtail rather than one.
I’ve found it hard to accurately recreate the food we learned how to cook at the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School, mainly because it’s difficult and expensive to get hold of galangal, holy basil and the right types of aubergine. I have bought shop bought curry pastes but even the most expensive seem out of balance compared to those we made in Thailand. When I use them I tend to add more garlic and ginger, add less salty flavouring such as soy sauce and I toast and grind some fennel seeds to add aniseed flavour.
Part of the Carnival of the Animals suite, The Swan is just beautiful. I’ve been listening to the whole album:
I only discovered Saint-Saens after wondering who wrote the theme for the vile Mr Tourette from Modern Toss. Mr Tourette is the opposite of beautiful, but in a good way.
I’ve finally finished reading Shantaram, on my third attempt to read it to the end!
The Good
I really enjoyed the travelogue aspect of it which took me back to India. I loved the parts set in the slum. He’s clearly spent a lot of time with Indians and has a great deal of affection for them.
The most unpleasant parts of the plot were the best written. His term in jail, the war and the murders and violence were all compelling.
It’s a good story with plenty packed in and has the feel of a number of books of different genres all shuffled together.
The Bad
I didn’t like any of the characters apart from Prabaker. Partly that was because there were just so many characters and he didn’t develop them very much so you didn’t get the chance to know them. Having said that I didn’t like Lin either. He always seemed to be boasting about himself: how he could speak all these languages, how he was a good fighter, how he healed people, how well he did at making money for the mafia etc. I also didn’t like the way he described how close he was to some people towards the end of the book and yet they had hardly been mentioned before that point.
The Ugly
The worst bits were the philosophical discussions (couldn’t stand all that rubbish about God being the ultimate complexity) and Lin’s romantic feelings for Karla and Lisa which made me cringe. I was also going to add all the supposedly clever stuff that people like Didier and Karla spouted but at least Lin pulled Karla up on that at the end of the book.
Summary
I’m glad I read it. It’s not the kind of book I usually go for but it was a remarkable story and made me want to go back to India.
The Boy With The Topknot by Sathnam Sanghera
Sathnam talking about it on Radio 4’s Bookclub
The Rotter’s Club & The Closed Circle by Jonathan Coe
The Wrong Boy by Willy Russell
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Got some free range pork ribs (more please Waitrose) out of the freezer today and am marinading them overnight according to Mark Hix’s barbeque pork ribs recipe. For the marinade I made some five spice powder using this recipe. Verdict: Very good, but the ribs need a bit more of a chilli kick.
Update (9 Dec 11):
Yesterday I made Nigel Slater’s honey roast ribs. It wasn’t as good as Mark Hix’s recipe and was a bit too sweet.